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Friday, May 28, 2010

Jumping into it

Thanks for your interesting comments, bloggy buddies. And for indulging my over analysis of probably spurious faux academic thoughts about fashion. Graduation was fine. It took a while but the students were really happy and really cute. I especially liked the following:- Honorary degrees: The people who get them are generally amazing. This year's crop included a history-changing (no joke) investigative journalist (old school kind, not the silver fox Anderson Cooper variety) and a social justice oriented actor/playwright.- Shoes! We can only see their shoes under their robes, and they did not disappoint. Towering, staggering architectural stilettos, intricate gladiators, earthy 70s style platforms, flip flips with sequins- you name it, I saw it. The dudes' shoes were also cool but less impressive. My very nice chairperson asked, "How can they walk in those shoes?"- I was there last year but I've forgotten about it already. My chair said, "Be prepared for some Liza Minelli song on the way out." The faculty walked in on Pomp and Circumstance and the exit song? "New York, New York." The students and the parents were dancing and singing along. Corny, but adorable.

OK, now that I have a day or so of grading ahead of me, this means summer. I have many goals, but in the short term, I do need a little break. I'd like to reactivate my fledging, mostly vegetarian cooking blog, which has dwindled this semester. I'm hoping the CSA veggies will help. And to get a leg up on that break, Brilliant Analytical Philosophy professor and I (herefore referred to as BAP) got started on the jumpsuits. Did you think I had forgotten about that? Like many women, we are a bit longer in the torso, which makes buying jumpsuits hard, but making jumpsuits more doable. Since we're no seamstresses, yesterday we did the muslin shell. As you can see, we pinned a couple seams the wrong way, but it worked for fitting. (There's a joke here about how many PhDs it takes to pin a 1970s jumpsuit).

This is view 2 of this Simplicity pattern, which many readers liked. While I originally wanted to make the longer pants version, I realized that I needed a perfect bike riding outfit. It is probably about a 1/2 inch too short in the length. We'll slash the traced pattern and add some length. And don't worry, this is only the shell for fitting the torso. The actual pants will be much longer.

But to satisfy my need to be a Charlie's angel, we are also making view 1 of this pattern, although we'll shorten the sleeves to elbow length. We aren't making view 2 because it doesn't have awesome cuffs or a fab button tab. This will be in a grey doubleknit.

I took about 10 shots of the fabric, but this was the best I could do with my open source photo editing software. The top blue woven fabric is for the bike outfit. I want to look like one of the workers in Germany or London that I saw during my time there, who'd wear zip up jumpsuits and carry lunch pails. A combination of those worker dudes and Rosie the Rivetor. (I don't know why, but construction workers in the U.S. with their bright orange plastic vests and overalls are less inspiring for me, fashion wise).

Do any of you folks have creative, non-academic/work goals for this summer?

5 comments:

Oooh, I can't wait to see the finished product. Are you scoping out lunch pails on eBay?

I am envious of your ability to keep yourself sane with creative projects. I am not at all talented in making things but I'd like to train this summer for an autumn half-marathon. Not creative, just one foot in front of the other, but also not sitting at a desk in a mad panic. We'll see how that goes.

Also, check this out: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Unintended-Value-of-the/65619/ Much more eloquent than I could have said it in my rambling comments.

I'm so excited to see how your jumpsuit turns out! I don't really get a summer (boo!) and I already blew most of my creativity on planting my garden. I'm supposed to start training to run a 5k in November, but I don't think I'll get started with that until Bob can join me, so probably around July. Right now, I'm just hoping to make it through each day :)

Oooh, I can't wait to see the finished product. Are you scoping out lunch pails on eBay?

I am envious of your ability to keep yourself sane with creative projects. I am not at all talented in making things but I'd like to train this summer for an autumn half-marathon. Not creative, just one foot in front of the other, but also not sitting at a desk in a mad panic. We'll see how that goes.

Also, check this out: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Unintended-Value-of-the/65619/ Much more eloquent than I could have said it in my rambling comments.